great ballast water op-ed, Duluth

This responds to a viewpoint by the shipping industry that blamed environmentalists for stopping ballast water control legislation in Congress this summer...after more than 20 years of foot-dragging by the industry itself.

I was surprised by the Aug. 9 opinion piece in the News Tribune, “Great Lakes View: Lawmakers shouldn’t let opportunity for ballast water legislation go down the drain.” I was one of the people who supposedly “swarmed” Capitol Hill, as the commentary reported, to shut down the passage of ballast-water legislation. Well, I’m not a locust or a hornet, so I didn’t swarm. I traveled to Washington to urge lawmakers to strengthen and pass ballast-water legislation, not to shut it down.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=49096